How to be a good trainer

How to be a good trainer - some options

Adults have to be taught differently from children because on the one hand they are more mature and set in their ways (ie they are not to easy to lead) and on the other hand they have more experience of life and are better able to judge what their learning needs are.

The best training sessions aim not only to put across a certain amount of content knowledge but also to help develop the professional skills and attitudes of the trainees. This means dealing with the full Professional Formation of the trainees and this includes the abilities to:

analyse complex issues,
identify the core of a problem and a means of solving it,
synthesise and integrate disparate elements,
clarify values,
make effective use of numerical and other information,
work co-operatively and constructively with others and,
communicate clearly both orally and in writing.

When a training session is being planned a decision has to be made about the methods which are to be used. The main options are shown below along with some of the techniques which might be used.

Knowing the subject is not the same as knowing how to teach the subject.

What matters is not what the trainer has taught (input) but rather that the trainee has learned (outcome).

The best teachers teach people rather than subjects

Help the students to better understand what they already know	Help the students to acquire new knowledge, skills and attitudes
By asking them	By telling them		By helping them to find out for themselves
Brainstorming Conceptual mapping Creatively generating problem and solution options Prioritisation techniques Decision making skills Action planning processes Monitoring and evaluation techniques	Lecture	Guided Discussion	Book Research	Field work
	A/v aids Interactive handouts Body posture Use of voice	Present/ discuss Seminar Tutorial	Library skills Internetting Study skills Active reading Note taking	Questions Methods Analysis Reporting Interviews Questionnaires Networking

As a general rule people learn better when they are active and are able to participate in the learning process. This is particularly true of skills (lectures about how to ride a bicycle?), and attitudes which are notoriously caught rather than taught. As a trainer you might as well say "Don't do as I say, do as I do", because that is what will happen anyway!

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